


Cleopatra Had a Jazz Band: a Choose Your Own Adventure

by okapi



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse, The Mummy Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Choose Your Own Adventure, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mummies, References to Ancient Egypt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 21:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Bertie's old friend Jonathan Carnahan (fromThe Mummyfilms) comes to town and hijinks ensue.For the 2019 Choose Your Own Adventure challenge.Note: I have purposefully not tagged everything to avoid spoilers. There are different endings with different resolutions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also for the DW 100 Fandoms challenge prompt 074. screech.

What with reports in the papers every day of new bits and bobs being dug up from Giza to Abu Simbel, it was the autumn that all of London had come down with a kind of Egyptian fever, and #3A Berkeley Mansions, Berkeley Square, W1 was no exception.

_“Cleopatra had a jazz band in her castle on the Nile_

_Ev’ry night she gave a jazz dance in her queer Egyptian style…”_

I warbled while sitting in the tub, a hand pushing ye ol’ sponge across the Wooster frame like a caravan traversing the Sahara.

Jeeves was about the place doing something domestic. He might have been polishing the latest addition to the household furnishings, a corker of a piece I’d brought home from the Drones. I’d won it in a game of skill, you know, the one where fellows take turns throw playing cards into a top hat, and though Jeeves wasn’t sold on it yet, I thought it added a certain I-don’t-know-what to the place.

The object in question was a cigarette box of fine mahogany with a gold ibis perched on the lid. You pushed a button and the drawer slid open and the bird dipped down, picked up a cigarette in its beak, and offered it to you.

Now, I ask you, what could be cleverer than that?

I had inquired of the fellow in charge of the prize-giving just where he’d picked it up, and he said it was part of legacy bequeathed to the club by an old Drone, Captain Winston Havelock was the name, who’d spent his last days nursing gin and tonics in Cairo watering holes before going to the great gentlemen’s oasis in the sky.

The box had a gold plate on the front engraved with palms and pyramids and similar and another gold plate on the side with hieroglyphics, you know, the squiggles that the headmasters of the day forced young pharaohs to jot in their copybooks. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the writing, but Jeeves had the brainy idea to consult our friend the bookseller, Mister Without A. Name, on the matter, and the next day, there’d been a delivery, a dusty old tome for Jeeves and for me, a new gooseflesher by my favourite author set in ancient Egypt.

Now the boxes and books weren’t the only touches of the Nile to grace chez Bertram et Jeeves. I’d also received, through Gallic channels, a tin of tea from Paris called Nil Noir. Jeeves and I took one collective household sniff and, by an exchange of significant glances, arrived at the conclusion that the tea was either part of an ancient embalmer’s kit or had at one time been employed by corrupt temple priests to raise the dead. Either way, I issued a firm nolle pro sequi on the agony of that specific leaf making an appearance on the Wooster tea tray, and it vanished like an unwary goat down a crocodile’s throat.

_“But the real historic scandal was that Cleo lost her sandal_

_as she danced to the strains of the Egyptian Jazz Band tune!”_

I was just about the launch into a finale, I’d selected “Old King Tut was a Wise Old Nut” for the honour, when I heard a knock at the door, and then the sound of a stuffed frog being popped by the business end of a dissecting pin.

“Sir!” screeched Jeeves, and he never screeches, ever.

From without, there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bath to see what was the matter.

The matter was a trio of burly men depositing a coffin which appeared to belong to King Tut’s poorer country cousin in the Wooster sitting room.

“I say,” I said as I girded my loins, that is, tied the sash of my dressing gown in a manner dripping with class distinctions. “There’s been a mistake. That’s not mine!”

“Delivery for Wooster,” grumbled one of men, who looked like a hippo who has just missed goring his first water-bearer of the day. He thrust an envelope at my chest.

“Don’t you mean ‘Foster’?” I inquired helpfully, but the three of them, having performed their duty and consigned their charge to what I hoped was not its final resting place, were already hoofing it, leaving calling cards of muddy boot prints in their wake.

“What’s the word I want, Jeeves?”

“Sarcophagus, sir?”

“That’s the one.” I opened the envelope and removed the note.

“Oh, my sainted aunts, Jeeves! It’s from my old pal Jonathan Carnahan. He’s been bumbling around the banks of the Nile since Amon-Ra was a boy. But I don’t understand. There are warehouses and museums for this kind of thing, and he wants to keep it here. But he says it’s just for a few days.”

Jeeves frowned. Then he looked from the sarcophagus to the cigarette box and shook his head in a resigned way, sort of like that of pharaoh’s favoured servant whose just heard his master’s death rattle.

“Very well, sir.”

Later that evening, Jeeves and I were in the sitting room, I curled up with the ripping _Death Comes as the End_, and Jeeves studying his Egyptian ABC’s.

After a while, Jeeves looked up and rotated the onion and, with his book still open in his hands, strode purposefully towards the cigarette box which, at that moment, held a place of distinction in the centre of the mantelpiece.

“What is it, Jeeves?” I asked, rising and joining him.

“I think I’ve worked it out, sir, the inscription on the side of the box.”

“Well, what does it say?” 

Jeeves coughed. “My pronunciation wrong, sir, and my syntax may be off—"

“Dash it all, Jeeves, now’s not the time for footnotes and disclaimers.”

“I believe it says: Oh! Amon-Ra—Oh! God of the Gods—Death is but the doorway to new life—We live today-we shall live again—In many forms shall we return-Oh, mighty one.”

Just then, the lights went out. A blast of cold air disarranged the Wooster coiffure and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. Doors banged open and slammed shut.

“Jeeves!” I exclaimed as I quivered from stem to stern.

“It is just the wind, sir. I will fetch candles.”

_If it was just the wind, go to [Chapter 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50221391#workskin)._

_If it most certainly was not just the wind, go to [Chapter 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50222156)_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bookseller Without A. Name is an original character I introduced in Chapter 1 of my fic [Jeeves and the Blue Train](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503425/chapters/33506295).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by selecting option 1 at the end of Chapter 1: _It was just the wind_.

Jeeves lit two candles and handed one to me.

“I require more study, sir. I do not think I pronounced the words correctly.”

“Quite all right, Jeeves. After all, the library at Alexandria wasn’t built in a day. At least this baby is still in its cradle.” I approached the sarcophagus and gave it the once-over, running my fingers along the unblemished seals. “All present and accounted for.”

“Did you expect otherwise, sir?”

“You never know with these things. I once saw a film where one of these popped its lid and the fellow who greeted its occupant ended up being fitted for a waistcoat of the Colney Hatch variety and laughing until his final breath. I hope Jonathan appears with the claim ticket soon. I don’t really fancy my sitting room being used as a luggage check for the embalmed, but that reminds me, if I know Jonathan, he’ll want a luncheon and a stiff drink or seven to go with his visit, so best stock the larder and the tantalus.”

“Very good, sir.” 

Three days later, I got a message from Jonathan inviting himself to tea, a hearty tea was his specific instruction, at my residence.

He arrived the following day and not alone. His party included his fiancée, a Miss Helen Grosvenor, and his manservant, a curious-looking cove by the name of Ardeth Bay.

Now, Jonathan was just the same chappie I remembered: fun, high-spirited, a good sort, in other words. His companions, or at least one of them, gave me pause.

Miss Helen Grosvenor was a striking specimen of the delicately nurtured. She had dark, short hair, a sweet, heart-shaped face and a profile to put Queen Nefertiti to shame, but the feature you noticed most were her wide-set eyes. She looked as if she could have been a model for the cover of the songsheet for My Sahara Rose, and indeed, she confirmed that she came by this Sphinx-like visage the old-fashioned way, viz. her late mother had been Egyptian.

She was all smiles and loveliness when she and Johnathan and the native bearer named Ardeth Bay first crossed the Wooster threshold. I ushered her and Jonathan into the sitting room while Jeeves peeled off with the manservant.

Funny thing, the moment Miss Grosvenor set eyes on the sarcophagus, her manner changed.

She stood still before it, her expression like that of the Soul’s Awakening, and seemed to take in nothing else in the room.

“Hullo, my dear,” said Jonathan, cosying up to his sweetheart. “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” she breathed like the stricken heroine of film. “I love him.”

“Good because it’s yours, my queen, a wedding gift from yours truly. I know ours has been a whirlwind romance, but it’s nonetheless true for that. This fellow was part of Old Havelock’s estate, who knows how he came by it, the old blighter, but he said it should come to me after his death. I wanted to surprise you, so I had it sent here.”

“Oh, oh,” she sighed, not looking at Jonathan at all. “My dearest Thutmosis. Finally.”

I took my leave, mumbling something about seeing to the foodstuffs but I couldn’t help thinking that it was amazing what lovers these days adopted as pet names for one another.

I went to the kitchen and walked in on Jeeves and Ardeth Bay huddled around Jeeves’ dusty Egyptian primer. It looked like school was in session, and the first words out of Jeeves’ mouth confirmed this impression.

“Mister Day was giving me some valuable instruction. I now know where I erred the other night.”

“All very well and good, Jeeves, but I think it’s time for the cucumber sandwiches.”

Ever the good and faithful, he sprang to his feet. “Of course, sir. Mister Bay, in fact, has no background in domestic service…”

Well, that was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes.

Ardeth Bay was a tall, imposing fellow of swarthy complexion, dark hair, and a formidable frame swathed from head to boot in yards and yards of flowing black fabric. With black calligraphy under each eye and a bit more on the forehead, he was more pirate than card-carrying member of the Cairo branch of Junior Ganymede Club, and I was ready to bet one hundred pounds of _neteryt_ that he did not know the first thing around a starching collar or serving from the left.

“…but he is willing to assist.”

“At your service,” said Ardeth Bay with a gesture I thought better not to reciprocate, not knowing precisely how they do things in down in Egypt-land and not wanting to get it wrong and tell him his mother spit like a camel or something of that sort.

“Right, ho,” I said instead and gave a cheery wave.

“He is a Medjai warrior,” explained Jeeves. “He accompanied Mister Carnahan on this journey because he is concerned about certain dangers in relation to the sarcophagus and its,” Jeeves paused, “current occupant.”

My eyebrows gave a howdy-do to my hairline.

“The Medjai are sworn to protect ancient Egyptian sites from disturbance and violation by the modern world,” said Ardeth Bay in a voice that sounded like incense smells. “We also protect the world from the consequences of such violations, namely the resurrection of ancient Egyptian spirits intent on evil and harm. Until very recently, I believed Thutmosis’ remains to be safely entombed. I was wrong. I do not know how they came to be in the possession of Captain Havelock, but by the time I learned of it, the crate was already on its way to London. Johnathan is my dear friend, and I am also close to his sister and her family. He acceded to my last-minute request to accompany him under the guise of servant. My aim is to return the remains of Thutmosis to its proper burial place, but I also seek to thwart any attempts to bring Thutmosis back to life. His was a cruel spirit devoted to nothing but amassing power with the help of his army of mercenaries and his beloved Hatshepsut.”

I was definitely not liking the sound of a spirit of the worst caliber taking up space in my sitting room, even if he was still getting its forty-thousand winks in a gold-plated cot.

“This bringing back to life,” I queried, trying to sound nonchalant, “I mean, it’s not something just any son of Horus could do, right?”

“No. The proper words said in the proper way before the gold ibis…”

“Wait, wait, gold ibis?” I interrupted.

“Yes, the amulet of Thutmosis was a gold ibis.”

“Probably a huge thing, right, life-sized or, I suppose, death-sized, depending how you look at it.”

“No, it’s quite small. Like this.” He indicated with his thumb and forefinger.

I gulped, and Jeeves and I exchange significant glances.

“Well, after you set out the comestibles, Jeeves, perhaps you should invite Mister Bay for a smoke.”

“My thoughts precisely, sir.”

“I think she rather likes it,” said Jonathan when I returned to the sitting room.

Like was an understatement.

Jonathan’s betrothed was plastered to the front of the sarcophagus, caressing the mask and headdress in a manner that I wasn’t certain should be allowed outside the marital chamber.

Jonathan was eventually able to peel her away and steer her toward the table where Jeeves and Ardeth Bay were setting out the afternoon’s dates and figs, but even I noted that Miss Grosvenor’s gaze, as striking as it was, kept shifting in the direction of the distantly departed, like a moth to the flame. And, to be frank, when she deigned to look at Jonathan at all, she seemed to regard him as a dung beetle she’d found stuck to the bottom of her sandal.

Disgusted, that’s the word I wanted.

I turned a blind eye to the lady’s odd behaviour and set about relieving about my own anxiety about the prospect of having to set a table for four, the plus one being a resurrected mummy, by engaging Jonathan in an amicable chinwag about old times. You know the sort of thing, how’s Phil, did you hear about Pat and Mike, etcetera, etcetera.

Having poured the tea, Jeeves oozed off with Ardeth Bay to the sitting room.

Jonathan was recounting a story about his sister and bookshelves, but I confess wasn’t paying much attention. I was listening to the voices in the other room. I heard first Jeeves’ voice, then Ardeth Bay’s, then Jeeves’ again in that tone he uses when he quotes Shakespeare or Shelley or old English ballads, then Ardeth Bay giving a bone-chilling shout.

“NO!”

There was a screech, a horrible, blood-curdling screech, like a thousand-year-old lid being pried off a gold-plated jar of jam.

Miss Grosvenor jumped up and ran from the room like the slitter from the tent after the first cut, screeching,

“THUTMOSIS!”

A ghastly voice screeched back, “HATSHEPSUT!”

Jonathan and I followed.

And what I saw made me feel as if a high priest had stuck a stick up my nose and scrambled my brain.

A figure wrapped in linen bandages was lumbering from the open sarcophagus and reaching for Miss Grosvenor, and she was returning the gesture.

“HELEN!” cried Johnathan.

They hissed like asps before the mongoose.

I thought we were for it, but then I heard a sure, strong voice.

_If Jonathan is speaking, go to [Chapter 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50221607#workskin)._

_If Ardeth Bay is speaking, go to [Chapter 4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50221844#workskin)._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helen Grosvenor is the name of the love interest of the mummy in the 1939 film _The Mummy_ with Boris Karloff.
> 
> Neteryt is the salt (natron) that embalmers used to dry out the organs of the deceased.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by selecting Option 2 at the end of Chapter 2: _It is Jonathan speaking._

It was Jonathan himself speaking in a clear tone of command. I confess it surprised me. I mean, Jonathan Carnahan is the kind of chappie you would vote most likely to tell a joke at a funeral or fall into a body of water in full evening dress, but I was reminded that he is also, at least about the scarabs and the Sekhmets, a rather brainy cove.

When he’d finished his proclamation, the fellow in the linen-bandage suit and Miss Grosvenor, who were now in each other’s arms, closer than Wadjyt and Nekhbet on a headdress, screeched an unholy duet.

Then they crumbled and crumbled until they were nothing but two piles of sand on the rug.

“Well done, Jonathan,” said Ardeth Bay.

“Was it?” asked Jonathan. He approached the sarcophagus and looked down at the grainy mounds. “I was engaged to her, Ardeth, and now, I suppose, the wedding’s off.”

I shot a look at Jeeves. He appeared as surprised as I was about the turn of events, but I suspected he was also thinking, as I was, that of all the ways to avoid getting to the altar rail, this one was truly spectacular.

“Um, so sorry, old thing,” I said, giving Jonathan what I hoped was a comforting pat on the shoulder while feeling a bit glad that I hadn’t got ‘round to buying that fish slice. “What can I do for you? I mean, what do you need? Dustpan? Broom?”

“The remains should be sealed in a receptacle and, along with the sarcophagus, returned to their proper place, which is a temple site south of Thebes,” he replied dolefully.

I scratched my head for a moment at the term ‘proper receptacle,’ but then Jeeves caught my eye. He gave a minute nod in the direction of the mantelpiece.

“Would a mahogany cigarette box do?” I offered, pointing at my hard-won _objet d’art_.

Jonathan looked up and turned his head, following the line of my finger with his eyes.

“The gold ibis!” he cried. “No wonder!”

“With the inscription from _The Book of the Dead_,” added Ardeth Bay. “We need to return it, Jonathan, and we need to return with it. We don’t belong here.”

They exchanged glances.

“You’re right, old friend. You’ve been right from the beginning. I was just too blind to see it. It’ll take a few days, however, to make certain everything is sealed properly, cancel all the wedding arrangements, and organise our journey back to Egypt with all of this.” He made a wide gesture.

“You’re both welcome to stay here,” I said. We Woosters are always ready to extend the good ol’ hosp. to a pal in need, and, all things being equal but some more equal than others, turning your betrothed and her three-thousand-year-old lover to dust definitely qualifies as a dire strait.

“Thank you, Bertie,” said Jonathan. “I think I’d like that.”

“So would I,” said Ardeth Bay. He looked at Jeeves. “It will give me time to teach an apt pupil the ways of Medjai.”

Jeeves beamed. “And I’ll introduce you to ironing.”

**THE END**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived at this chapter by choosing Option 2 at the end of Chapter 2: _It was Ardeth Bay speaking._

It was Ardeth Bay. His words cut through the air like a scimitar, sounding a bit like the ones that Jeeves had uttered the other night, but not quite. Same tune, different key, that sort of thing.

The mummy crumbled, and by that, I mean he turned to a kind of breakfast cereal before my very e’s.

And Miss Grosvenor, who had been reaching for the wrapped fellow, put her hands over her mouth and recoiled in horror. She fainted, too, but Jonathan dove and, being like a prop forward who knows how to give the reverse pass, caught her before she hit the floor.

“Put her on the sofa!” I cried, suddenly assuming my master of the h. role. “Jeeves, smelling salts, brandy, hot water bottles, and whatever this articulate man,” I waved at Ardeth Bay, “tells you we need!”

“Yes, sir!”

I, for my part, couldn’t help but move closer to the grainy mound where the mummy had once stood, eyeballing it with no little fascination.

“Mister Jeeves was very close the first time,” whispered Ardeth Bay as he looked over my shoulder. “And he, unfortunately, could not resist the urge to try again and apply my corrections. The second time he pronounced it very well.”

I shuddered. To think Jeeves’ powers extended to raising the ancient Egyptian dead! And here I thought he was just a wonder at studding shirts and launching me out of the matrimonial soup!

Jeeves fetched the first aid supplies for Miss Grosvenor, then he assisted Ardeth Bay cleaning up what remained of the uninvited guest; from what I could tell, they were sweeping him up into the second-best tea tin.

I went to the sofa and was gratified to see the young lady coming back to life herself.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“It’s me, darling, Jonathan,” said Jonathan.

“Jonathan?”

“Jonathan Carnahan, your fiancé.”

“My what?!” she screeched.

“Stands to reason you’re not yourself. You’ve had horrid shock, love.”

Recalling a line in film used in a scene like this one, I piped up. “What’s the last thing you remember, Miss Grosvenor?”

“I was dancing. No, I was watching people dancing. Then I heard a voice, a familiar voice.”

I frowned. I hadn’t even got to the gramophone portion of the entertainment.

“I asked you to dance in the ballroom of The Palms hotel in Cairo,” said Jonathan. “That’s where we met, just after Cossington, Havelock’s solicitor, handed over the sarcophagus.”

“What’s my name?”

“Helen Grosvenor,” supplied Jonathan.

“The voice called me something else.”

“Hatshepsut?” suggested Ardeth Bay, who arrived behind me.

“Yes! That was it!” she said excitedly.

“You’ve been under a terrible spell, Miss Grosvenor,” said Ardeth. “An evil spirit that has been resting for three thousand years began to wake up and thought you were his true love reincarnated. He’s been controlling your movements ever since you met Mister Carnahan at The Palms.”

She stared at Jonathan, who gave her a weak smile. “I got you a sarcophagus as a wedding gift, but, uh, the mummy inside accidently came to life a few minutes ago. But Ardeth here, quite rightly, remembered the oaths that would send the scoundrel back to sleep. Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Not at all,” murmured Ardeth.

Miss Grosvenor’s eyes became round as saucers. “Are we in Cairo?” she asked, gazing about the sitting room, which I suppose didn’t exactly look like an oasis in the desert.

“No, you’re in London,” I said. “You came to tea at my house. Wooster, Bertram.” I tapped my chest for good measure. “That’s my man, Jeeves.”

“London!” she cried. “I’ve always wanted to go to London!”

“Well, that’s all right then,” I said. “Uh, Jonathan, about that…” I motioned to the empty sarcophagus.

“Yes, well, I was planning to install in our London nest, when we feathered it…”

“It and Thutmosis should go back to the temple site south of Thebes, Jonathan,” said Ardeth Bay firmly. “And so should we.”

“Well, I’m staying here, in London,” declared the lady resolutely. She seemed to be recovering from her swoon quite nicely, I thought, all things considered.

Jonathan looked at bit helplessly about, as if one of the unpossessed furnishings could help him. “Oh, I don’t know what to do.”

I opened my mouth to protest that there wasn’t really any room at the Wooster inn for such malevolent knick-knacks when Ardeth Bay interrupted me.

“I shall instruct Mister Jeeves in ways of keeping his household safe from further threats until a decision is reached.”

And that, as they say, was that.

And so Ardeth Bay became a fixed feature at the Wooster household in the following fortnight, but I saw neither hare nor hide of the happy couple.

I finally bumped into Jonathan at the Drones, and he was decidedly down among the wines and spirits.

“The engagement’s off. Helen’s rented an artist’s studio in Chelsea and has taken up painting stevedores in the nude. It seems her ardour for me was all a mummy’s curse or some such.”

“Tough luck,” I said. “So what are your plans?”

He looked thoughtful. “Bertie, have you ever had something right under your nose but not been able to see it?”

The time I grew a moustache that everyone thought looked like a stain of mulligatawny soup under my nose came to mind, but I forebear to mention it because Jonathan was still speaking.

“I think, well, I think…Bertie?”

“Yes?”

“I say, Bertie?”

“Still right here, ol’ chap, and hanging on your every w.”

“Ardeth Bay.”

I recognised the look on his face. It was the one I’d seen in the mirror during that harrowing period when I had the foolish notion that a competent gentleman’s personal gentleman couldn’t possibly hold any romantic sentiment for a gentleman who most thought out to have been put in a home years ago.

“Does he know of the full nature of your regard?” I asked.

Jonathan shook his head.

“You know, he and Jeeves have become quite chummy these past two weeks. If you wish, I’ll make very discrete inquiries.”

“Could you, Bertie?”

“Absolutely, dear man.”

“Well, it had better be soon because Ardeth’s drawn a line in the kehmet: he’s leaving the day after tomorrow with or without me, but we’ve reached a meeting of the minds on the sarcophagus, or rather I’ve conceded to his wishes. He’ll take it with him and what’s left of Thutmosis, thank you for the cigarette box, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it, old thing,” I said, and I meant it. Because having a gold bird offer you a gasper in its beak is rather toppin’, but it’s certainly not worth the risk of having domestic tranquility, as well as the state of neck and head being attached, disturbed by the accidental rise of the undead, what? Jeeves and Ardeth Bay had successfully transferred the rest of the sandy Ra-help-us to the mahogany case.

Jonathan and I exchanged a few more pleasantries, and I biffed off for home.

I happened to catch the object of Jonathan’s affection on the pavement outside my building. His visage bore a hard, determined expression, and by way of greeting, he spared only the briefest of grunts as he passed on his way.

I asked Jeeves about this when I crossed the threshold.

“Why does Mister Bay bare a striking resemblance to the Assyrian who came down like a wolf on the fold, Jeeves? Of course, without the cohorts gleaming purple and gold.”

Jeeves was sheathing his daggers, and I counted myself prescient, if that’s the word I want, for making myself scarce during the hand-to-hand combat lesson.

“I have advised him to be frank with Mister Carnahan about the nature of his feelings, and he wishes to do so before his courage fails him.”

“Egad, Jeeves! Do you mean to say that Jonathan’s feelings for Mister Bay are reciprocated?”

“Definitely, sir. It pained him greatly to observe Mister Carnahan wooing Miss Grosvenor, especially when he suspected her feelings to be supernaturally induced.”

“Well, she’s given Johnny-boy the mitten and gone Bohemian!”

“Really, sir? Oh, that is most fortunate.”

“It is, isn’t it? And if they find their bliss, they may both be shuffling off to Crocodophilus day after tomorrow and taking that thing,” I nodded to the sarcophagus, “and that thing,” I pointed to the cigarette box, “off our hands.”

“It will come as a relief, sir, though I have confidence in my skills, and ounce of prevention is worth…”

“A pound of spells and scimitar-swinging?”

“Precisely, sir.”

And so it came to pass. Jonathan and Ardeth joined a mutual admiration society, and in two days’ time, Jeeves and I were seeing them off at the station to much well-wishing.

“Pups in love,” I said under my breath as I smiled and waved.

“Indeed, sir,” said Jeeves as he returned from making certain the very special cargo was aboard.

“I suppose, for a while, Jeeves, the sitting room will seem a bit bare.”

“And benign, sir.”

“Fancy a painting of a nude stevedore?”

He looked appalled, then caught my jesting grin, and replied, with a twinkle in his e.,

“Perhaps for the bedroom, sir.”

**THE END**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by choosing Option 2 at the end of Chapter 1: _It most certainly was NOT the wind._

Jeeves lit two candles and handed me one.

“Jeeves, whatever that was it most certainly was not the wind!”

“No, sir!”

We stared at the sarcophagus with a wild surmise, our eyes wider those of the chappies on that peak in Darien.

The lid had blown off and smashed into the far wall.

“Perhaps it was originally unoccupied?” I suggested, with faint hope.

“I am doubtful, sir. Look!” Jeeves directed his index finger at a trail of sand disturbed by shuffling marks which ran from the sarcophagus to the open front door and beyond.

“Not the footprints of gigantic hound, but nevertheless, Jeeves…”

“Yes, sir. I think we’d better follow them.”

“And just for the record: I think the gentleman’s gentleman doth protest too much about his pronunciation! Your Rosetta Stone was a bit too spot-on, what?”

“It would seem so, sir.”

Our absconder had clearly taken the stairs, but we lost the scent when we reached the pavement.

“Surely a mummy can’t just blend in with the crowd, Jeeves?”

“I hardly dare to venture an opinion on that point, sir.”

Our frantic searching hither and thither garnered not a few curious glances from passers-by, but finally, we gave up and returned home.

I helped Jeeves fit the lid back on the sarcophagus and held the dustpan as he swept up the grainy residue.

“Jeeves, I do not want to tell Jonathan that his Nile chicken has flown the coop, so to speak.”

“I can readily understand that, sir.”

“Can’t you throw a tablecloth over it or something to mask the broken seals?”

“Yes, sir.”

Now for about three days, Jeeves and I scoured the newspapers and chatted up the neighbourhood, and made discrete inquiries wherever we could, all in the hopes of finding out what had happened to our fugitive houseguest, with absolutely no takers. And so, despite the utter singularity of the incident, it was sort of pushed to the back of our minds as life marched on.

I was soon grappling with announcement from Aunt Agatha that she was coming to town to discuss my future. No doubt she’d found some screeching beazel she thought would make the perfect Mrs. Bertram Wooster and ‘mould me.’ Telegrams flew back and forth for days. Her plans were soon carved in stone, including the menu for the luncheon I was to give her, when my cousin Thos, for once in his miserable life showing impeccable timing, fell into a jubilee watering trough somewhere and came down with pneumonia and required a mother’s tender care.

Jeeves also had some excitement in his life, to wit, a former employer of his, a brainy chap by the name of Hoover, sent him a gift of a very modern piece of domestic equipment. It was like an electric anteater, but an appetite for dust instead of ants, and he was so engrossed in the instruction manual that he’d set his Egyptian ABC’s aside to, well, gather the dust that his contraption would eventually be eating, I suppose.

It was in the middle of all this that Jonathan’s telegram arrived.

“Jeeves, the feast we’d planned for Aunt Agatha will have to be proportioned for Jonathan and his fiancée, Miss Helen Grosvenor, and I’m afraid you’ll have to bear with a native bearer by the name of Ardeth Bay. They’re arriving tomorrow for luncheon.”

Jeeves took this in his usual stride.

“Very good, sir.”

“I still don’t know what we’re going to do about the sarcophagus. I suppose we can blame tomb robbers. I mean, they seem to have plundered quite a bit down Egypt-way, what? You don’t think there might be a London branch of them?” I scratched the onion. “Probably hanging around the back of the British Museum waiting for new shipments to arrive or lurking around the docks.”

“We could blame it on thieves, sir. But might I suggest honesty? Mister Carnahan may have an explanation himself. He is, from what I gather from your description of him, an expert in such matters.”

“True. In his own way, he’s as loopy as Gussie Fink-Nottle, only the object of his fascination is ancient Egypt and Gussie’s is newts, but nobody writes dance hall numbers about newts, do they?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir.”

“So there you go. Not a single zippy tune about newts while if I want to sing about Cleopatra, Old King Tut, or the Sphinx in the bath, I’ve got a whole songbook, don’t I?”

“Indeed, sir,” said Jeeves as he unfurled a rug and let it settle over the sarcophagus.

* * *

When Jonathan arrived the following day, I found him to be his merry ol’ self. His entourage, however, or at least a part of it, gave me pause.

_If Ardeth Bay gives Bertie pause, go to [Chapter 6.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50224232#workskin)_

_If Miss Helen Grosvenor gives Bertie pause, go to [Chapter 9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50228936#workskin)._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by choosing Option 1 at the end of Chapter 5: _Ardeth Bay gives Bertie pause._

Ardeth Bay did give me pause. He was a tall cove, built rather like an obelisk, with dark eyes sunk into sockets as deep and ominous as the kind of caves where No One treads. He seemed to be looking at something else even when he was looking right at you. He was wrapped in a sandstorm of black linen, but what startled me most was his skin. Now normally, I don’t give an asp’s tooth about a fellow’s dermis, unless it’s my own and I’ve just broken out in spots, but this chappie’s was like papyrus covered in the best of the Sahara brown, a very curious texture. He looked he might crumble, and it was with a mild trepidation that I extended by own mitt for the shaking.

He shook his head.

“Ardeth prefers not to be touched,” interjected Jonathan, giving his manservant the eye, who, in turn, I noticed was passing said eye like a hot potato to Miss Grosvenor.

Well, well, well, I thought.

Then, with a gesture I think he learned from that dusty book of his, Jeeves led Ardeth Bay into the kitchen.

Miss Grosvenor was a lovely girl, a toppin’ onion crowned with tight, dark curls; wide-set, Sphinx-like eyes that seemed made for kohling; a heart-shaped face, and a profile to write a naughty dance hall song about.

And the ninth wonder of the ancient world is that she seemed dotty about ol’ Johnny-boy.

I ushered them into the sitting room, mentioned my gramophone record collection, and invited Miss Grosvenor to select a tune for a bit of diversion.

While she was occupied, Jonathan whispered, “Well done, old thing, putting Grandpa under wraps.” He nodded at the sarcophagus. “It’s a gift for her. A surprise. I’m going to give it to her after we eat.”

Now, until that moment, I’d been given to understand that girls like to receive jewelry and furs and perfume and the like, not three-thousand-year-old cursed antiquities, but, of course, it had been a while since I had been a bestower of trinkets and tokens on the fairer sex. Modern girls smoked gaspers and went in for all kinds of things.

Miss Grosvenor had evidently made her selection for Murray and Alan’s “3000 Years Ago” warbled from the spinner.

_“I met two Egyptian mummies from King Pharaoh’s tomb._

_They dug them up three weeks ago but they don’t know by whom.”_

The tune reminded me of what wasn’t in the sarcophagus, but before I could confess, I caught sight of Jeeves and Ardeth Bay laying out the foodstuffs on the table and gave _sotto voce _to my anxiety of earlier, “Jonathan, that manservant of yours…”

Jonathan sighed. “He’s not really my manservant, of course; it was just easier to travel that way. I think he’s ill or something, but he refuses to tell me what’s the matter. He’s changed completely since we arrived in England a week ago. I think it’s a skin condition that gone to his brain. All I know is that,” he pointed toward the dining room, “is nothing resembling a Medjai warrior.”

“A week?” I said, silently counting on my fingers the days since the sarcophagus had erupted.

“Yes, the three of us arrived in London a week ago. I had to take care of some matters pertaining to a late friend’s estate and was in the country for a week. Helen and Ardeth stayed in town. Ardeth’s not staying long. Or at least, if I have anything to say about it, he’s not staying long. He’s taken too keen a fancy to Helen.”

“I noticed that.”

“Did you? It’s strange because in Cairo he hardly paid her any attention at all. I don’t mean he was rude, just not especially attentive. Not like now. He’s even given her a pet name. He calls her Hatshepsut.”

“Wasn’t that one of the queens an awfully long time ago?”

“Yes,” he said.

His own queen was starting to dance as the song played on.

_“The ladies would salaam the men or else they’d get the sack. _

_If you salaam the girls today you bet they’d slam you back.”_

Wise words, I thought, but then, Jeeves announced,

“Gentlemen and lady, luncheon is served.”

The meal passed pleasantly enough, but my shaken nerves had returned by the time we’d licked the plates clean and, as host, I had to suggest a change of venue.

Helen, Jonathan, and I returned to the sitting room. I led the procession and took up the mahogany box with the ibis and put it on the small table between the armchairs. Then, in the manner of trainers of circus fleas, I said, ‘Now watch this.’

I pushed the button, the ibis did its trick, and I took the cigarette from its beak with a conjurer’s flourish.

Helen clapped, Jonathan smiled and said, “Well done, old boy,” but behind them Ardeth Bay grew wide-eyed and dropped the tray he was holding.

Cups and saucers and spoons and a full pot of coffee crashed to the floor.

But while Helen, Jonathan, and I were casting confused and worried looks at each other and making exclamations and bending to pick up the pieces, Ardeth Bay circumvented, if that’s the word I want, I think Magellan enters into it, us and seemed to float toward the cigarette box.

I looked up in time to see him open his mouth, utter some words in a foreign, and I suspected ancient, tongue, and twisted the ibis.

The drawer of the box sprang open an extra two inches. Ardeth Bay yanked it from its moorings and produced, from the compartment behind the cigarettes, a yellow stone the size of a golf ball. He let the drawer, and its contents, fall to the floor with the rest of the mess and held the stone aloft.

“Oh, dear, God,” breathed Jonathan. “Oh, no, no…”

Ardeth Bay opened his mouth again, but the sound did not come from him.

It came from Jeeves, who was standing in the threshold, one hand holding his Egyptian ABC’s open and the other raised like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, casting out a demon.

Not a bad description for when he was done, Ardeth Bay crumbled to the floor, transformed into a heap of sand, atop which rested the yellow stone.

“Ardeth!” cried Jonathan.

But there was nothing left of him.

“I regret to inform you, Mister Carnahan, that your friend’s body was used by the late inhabitant of this,” Jeeves drew the rug off the sarcophagus and I moved to help him remove the lid, showing, in the manner of magicians everywhere, that the lady was most certainly not in the box, “which I accidentally resurrected by reciting the inscription on the side of the cigarette case.”

Jonathan boggled at the empty vat, then he got to his feet and helped Helen to hers.

He studied the plaque on the side of the cigarette box. “It’s from the Book of the Dead,” he remarked. “And that,” he pointed to the yellow stone, “is a stone of Anubis. Together, in the presence of the mummified corpse of Thutmosis,” he waved at the sarcophagus, “would’ve done the trick. He must’ve been looking for the right human body to possess and when he came across a Medjai warrior, well, he probably thought his Nefer amulet was working very hard.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” said Jeeves, ruefully.

“How could you know? And you saved our pelts, too, my dear man,” said Jonathan. “Your pronunciation was very good, by the way, and, with your permission, I’m going to want to take a peek at that book at some point. My sister, too, if she ever comes back to town.”

“Of course,” said Jeeves.

I mopped my brow with a square of cambric. “I believe you’ve earned your bally leopard skin, Jeeves.”

He went slightly stuffed frog and replied,

“Thank you, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction.”

Jeeves then shimmered into the sitting room and set the book on the sofa. He bent low, turned the tray over on the ground and began to stack the cups and saucers on it.

“Jonathan,” said Helen as she put a hand on his shoulder.

Jonathan turned towards her. “Well, that explains Ardeth’s recent fascination with you, my love.” He took her in his arms, smoothed her hair, and kissed her forehead. “He wasn’t himself at all. He was Thutmosis, and he thought you were his queen.” He sighed and looked at the cigarette box. “Bertie, how did you come by this?”

“I won the bally thing at the Drones, but it belonged to one of your sand fly friends, a fellow by the name of Havelock.”

“Havelock! Of course, that old devil! That’s where the sarcophagus came from, his estate.” He turned toward Helen once more. “I just wanted to get you something as special as you are, my girl.”

“A nice sable stole will do next time,” she said sweetly, giving him a peck on the cheek.

As happy as I was to see the lovers sharing a tender moment, I was, naturally, more interested in the state of my sitting room, namely, the décor. “Jonathan, I am not a fussy man, but I would really like this and this and this,” I indicated the sarcophagus and the pile of sand and the stone, “to vacate the Wooster premises toot sweet.”

“Right ho, Bertie. Your choice, my dearest: British Museum or Carnahan residence?”

_If Miss Grosvenor picks the British Museum go to [Chapter 7](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50224613#workskin)._

_If she picks the Carnahan residence go to [Chapter 8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106121/chapters/50224754#workskin)._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by choosing Option 1 at the end of Chapter 6: _Miss Grosvenor picks the British Museum._

“I don’t want any part of it,” said Helen with a shudder. “Especially if it killed your friend.”

“Of course,” agreed Jonathan. “All to the Museum. They get paid to deal with curses.”

And so what remained of Ardeth Bay, or Thutmosis, depending on your view, got swept up and deposited in a black-and-gold tea tin, the one that had once held that unpleasant Nil Noir, and left, once a bearer party arrived from the museum, with the sarcophagus and the stone and the luncheon guests.

When they’d all gone, I sighed. “Jeeves, I’ve got to get rid of that cigarette box. I was going to offer it to Jonathan and Helen as a wedding present but…”

He looked at me with unnecessary alarm.

“…I thought they’d probably fancy a fish slice more.”

“A wise choice, sir. You could send it to Mister Name, the bookseller, in appreciation for our latest selection of reading material.”

“What a toppin' idea! After all, it was that book that got us in, and out of, the soup, wasn’t it? And he can put it with all those other curios in the shop. I think I saw a stuffed crocodile the first time I visited. Box it up and send it ‘round, Jeeves, with my compliments, etcetera.”

“Yes, sir.”

He set about his work, and I decided I was entitled to a stiffish drink.

The glass was half empty, or half full, as you like it, when Jeeves returned.

“A telegram from Lady Worplesdon.”

“Oh, God, the mirror's crack'd from side to side, Jeeves! Not Aunt Agatha! I can’t take any more curses today. Read it and give me the bad news first.”

He read it and gave the gist.

“She’s arriving tomorrow, sir, and expecting the lunch…”

He turned his head toward the table.

“…that we just ate?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jeeves, if we sent the box ‘round at once and packed like bandits on the run, how far could we get by sundown?”

“Traveling east or west, sir?”

“Good question. Your pick.”

“I have always fancied taking a cruise on the Nile, sir.”

“Have you now? Well, I don’t suppose we’d have half the excitement that we had today.” I let the marble roll around a bit, then announced, “Saddle the camel, Jeeves, and let’s go. Just don’t forget to tuck that book in your valise. We may need it, and your fine pronunciation, again.”

“Yes, sir!”

**THE END**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by choosing Option 2 at the end of Chapter 6: _Miss Grosvenor picks the Carnahan residence._

“I don’t know, Jonathan, do you think you could, somehow, bring your friend back?”

We all stared at the heap of dust.

“I don’t right know, love. It’s worth a try. Let’s take everything home and try to sort it out. Mister Jeeves, if you would, consult your book on the matter when you’ve the chance. I’d appreciate any advice.”

“Yes, sir. And sir, if I might suggest something in which to contain the late, late gentleman…”

The something turned out to be the Hoover machine, which Jeeves proceeded to demonstrate by plugging it in and flipping a few switches and sucking up every grain that once was Ardeth Bay, or Thutmosis, depending on your view. Then Jeeves fiddled with the instrument and handed Jonathan a canister that he’d removed from the belly of the beast.

“Gosh,” said Jonathan. “Golly,” said Miss Grosvenor. And I was forced to agree with them both.

Jonathan made some telephone calls and eventually a bearer party arrived, and he and Helen left with them, taking sarcophagus, yellow stone, Hoover can, and, I insisted, the cigarette box with the gold ibis.

We promised to stay in touch.

When they’d departed, I smoked a relieved but thoughtful cigarette.

“Telegram from Lady Worplesdon, sir,” said Jeeves a while later.

I groaned. “Tell her I’ll take her to the Ritz.” I stubbed out my cigarette. “I hope there’s a happy ending to this story, Jeeves.”

“As do I, sir.”

To borrow a turn of phrase: Reader, there was.

Three months later, the Wooster account was minus the cost of one fish slice and I was in my best morning coat, swinging a dashed efficient shoe with a charming fellow by the name of Ardeth Bay, but how that came to be is another tale entirely.

**THE END**


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrived here by choosing Option 2 at the end of Chapter 5: _Miss Helen Grosvenor gives Bertie pause._.

Ardeth Bay was a formidable obelisk. Tall, dark, cocooned from turban to hem line in black linen, with squiggles under each eye that I hoped didn’t translate to ‘death to smartly dressed chappies named Bertram.’ But I didn’t have much time to think about Ardeth Bay or his squiggles because Jeeves spirited him away to the kitchen almost as soon as his imposing shadow crossed the threshold of chez Wooster.

Miss Grosvenor was, to use a phrase I heard Jeeves utter once, a study in contrasts.

To look at she seemed a very comely miss: dark hair, dark, wide-set eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a smashing profile. But those eyes, no matter how striking and Sphinx-like, were definitely fogged in.

I mean to say, she didn’t quite look at you. She didn’t quite look at anything. She walked in a kind of stilted shuffle, buoyed along by Jonathan’s arm around her waist. She mumbled a few pleasantries, at least they might have been pleasant if I’d heard them properly, and then Jonathan deposited her on the sofa.

“I’ll fix you a drink, love,” he said cheerfully, and he and I waltzed toward the fixings.

Not certain how to begin, I began, “Jonathan…”

We exchanged significant glances.

“Yeah, she’s been strange all day. She was fine at breakfast but after,” he glanced back and shrugged, “like that. Odd. She’s usually a corker.”

“Did anything happen this morning?”

“She said she bumped into someone used to know in the hotel lobby.”

Oh.

“That doesn’t sound good, Jonathan.”

“I know. Make mine a double, Bertie.”

“Right ho.”

“Oh, and thanks for covering the old man over there. It’s a gift for her. I thought I’d surprise her after we eat.”

I refrained from confessing that the surprise might be on him when he discovered there was no Imhotep in the box. I handed him a strong whiskey and soda and a weak gin and tonic and then oozed off with a recommendation that he get a smoke from the ibis and play something snappy on the gramophone.

In the kitchen, I found Jeeves and Ardeth Bay in heated discussion, which they halted when the y. m. appeared in their midst like a spectre at the feast.

“Sir, two grave matters are at hand,” said Jeeves.

“I would think that one of them, Jeeves, is that grave-box in our sitting room ought to have a ‘Vacancy’ sign on it!”

“Just so, sir. I have been frank with Mister Bay about recent occurrences, and he suspects that we—”

I shot him a look, and I meant it to sting.

“—that is to say,_ I_ resurrected the remains of an ancient Egyptian king, King Thutmosis. The king is currently about the metropolis seeking his queen, Hatshepsut.”

“Any chance he’ll book himself on the next Cook’s tour and head back to the Valley of Kings to look for her?” I asked, hopefully.

Ardeth Bay shook his head. “I saw him this morning, lurking about our hotel. When he spotted Miss Grosvenor, he became very agitated. He approached her and called her ‘Hatshepsut.’”

“Lord, love a jackal-head!” I cried. Jeeves, too, went a bit constipated crocodile.

“I tried to intervene,” Ardeth Bay continued, “but he eluded me. The Medjai are sworn to protect the ancient places from modern violations but we can also protect modern places, and people, from ancient violations.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re on our side! At least some of the time. So what are we to do?”

“Be on the alert, sir,” said Jeeves. “Mister Bay has also commended to my attention various utterances in this,” he pointed to the open book on the table, “which may be able to assist in rebuking King Thutmosis and thwarting him in his aim.”

“I don’t know, Jeeves, ‘rebuking’ and ‘thwarting’ seem a bit, well, mild. I mean, if I’d been sleeping for three thousand years and woke up looking for my lost true love, a strongly-worded letter to the editor at _Times_ wouldn’t put me off the scent, what?”

“Sending Thutmosis back to his grave is not a simple task,” said Ardeth Bay. “Especially when he is thousands of miles from his designated eternal resting place.”

“Yes, I can see that. Well, scribble them on your sleeve, Jeeves. I suppose this incident in the hotel lobby is why Miss Grosvenor’s been acting strangely today. Jonathan mentioned it.”

“Yes,” said Ardeth Bay. “I think Thutmosis already has her under his power. He just needs to find her and claim her.”

I shook the lemon. “That’s bad news.” Then I furrowed the brow. “But wait, speaking of bad news, Jeeves, didn’t you say there were two grave matters at hand? What’s the other one?”

“This.” He handed me a telegram.

Then he pushed a chair beneath me to catch me when the Wooster knees buckled.

I don’t rightly know how much time passed, but I do remember Jeeves touching the rim of a glass to my lips, I sipped and realised it was that magical elixir know as ‘Jeeves’ special.’

I heard his voice.

“It is the Worcester sauce that gives it its colour. The raw egg makes it nutritious. The red pepper gives it its bite.”

Then I heard Ardeth Bay’s.

“It is interesting that every culture has its own methods of reviving the moribund.”

“Jeeves,” I gurgled after a few more mouthfuls of the blessed juice were foxtrotting down the ol’ hatch, “I just had a nightmare than Aunt Agatha sent word that she was coming to lunch today!”

“I regret to inform you that you are not asleep, sir. I have just laid an extra place at table.”

“But, Jeeves, there’s another aged relative on the loose, not mine, but someone’s, I imagine, and he might be showing up without a reservation, too, to take Miss Grosvenor away!”

“Very true, sir.”

“Is it too late to be reincarnated as a dung beetle, Jeeves? Because I’m fancying that a lot more than my own part at the moment!”

I am ashamed to admit that my tone was nearing a panicked screech.

Jeeves laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. “The Code of the Woosters, sir, prevents such a thing.”

And that was it. Like magic. Mention the fighting ancestors, and Bertram knows he cannot give up.

I took a deep breath. “You’re right, Jeeves. Ours is not to wonder why, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Precisely, sir.”

Just then, the doorbell rang.

“I will answer my own door, Jeeves,” I said in the tone of the fellows just before Agincourt.

“Very good, sir.”

* * *

“Bertie!”

“Aunt Agatha, what a pleasure it is to see you! And how is young Thos?”

“On the mend, thank you,” she said as she gave me her coat and hat.

“I wasn’t expecting you today, Aunt Agatha. I have a couple of friends for lunch, too, Jonathan Carnahan and his fiancée, Miss Helen Grosvenor.”

She frowned. “I was planning to talk about your future, Bertie, but I suppose we can do that after luncheon.”

I’d just put up her coat and hat when the doorbell rang again.

“Jeeves!”

He manifested.

“Jeeves, please take Aunt Agatha into the dining room while I answer the door. I think that’s the safest course of action, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Safest course of action? What in the world are you talking about, Bertie? You know, you’re looking even stranger than usual.”

Despite Aunt Agatha’s protests and suspicions, she went with Jeeves.

I opened the door.

And gasped.

The figure before me looked like he’d walked straight off a wall at Luxor.

Headdress. Beard. Bare chest. Big muscles.

Did I mention the big muscles?

And a huge dagger in his raised hand.

“Hatshepsut!” he called.

“Now see here,” I said, with a quivering voice, but he swatted me out of the way like a sand fly.

Suddenly there erupted a volley of screeches from within coming at me from all directions.

From the sitting room.

“Thutmosis, my true love!”

“Helen! What are you doing?”

From the dining room.

“Bertie!”

“My lady! Sir!”

And from my own lips.

“Jeeves! Help!”

Thutmosis dropped the dagger as Helen Grosvenor flew into his arms. One of her arms was bent, her hand in a fist. He covered her hand with his, completely enveloping it. Then she seemed to open her hand and slide it from his grasp. Then she curled her arm ‘round his neck.

He whispered something in her ear, and she smiled.

Jonathan spotted the fallen dagger and picked it up. He made to strike, but then hesitated, no doubt for fear of stabbing his beloved instead of the resurrected interloper.

Thutmosis kissed Helen’s lips.

“Oh!” I cried.

“Oh!” Jonathan cried.

And then Helen wasn’t a Helen anymore.

Her clothes, her jewelry, her hair changed before my eyes, and speaking of eyes, hers were now thickly-lined with kohl. There was a heavy perfume in the air, which reminded me of Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, who I remembered from that time I’d won that prize at school for Scripture knowledge.

I glanced at Jonathan who must’ve been seeing what I was seeing based on the look of utter astonishment on his face.

“Bertie, I don’t know what kind of fancy dress party you were planning on hosting, but that kind of lewd behavior is not appropriate!”

Thutmosis and his queen turned their heads and looked at me and then beyond me, that is, over my right shoulder into the dining room. They recoiled in horror which, really, is an understandable reaction when Aunt Agatha is viewed by any creature, living, dead, or in-between. Then the two fled together out the front door.

“Helen!” cried Jonathan. “Helen!” He ran after them.

“Bertie! I want an explanation!”

Without having any notion as to what I was going to say, I turned.

And then I saw something even more amazing than a mummy brought back to life or a girl turned into an ancient Egyptian queen. I saw Jeeves step aside and hold open the door…

…and allow Ardeth Bay, with scimitar drawn over his head, to advance into the dining room.

Aunt Agatha saw my face and turned ‘round.

“AARGH!” she screeched, threw her hands in the air, and ran out the door, too.

I stared at Ardeth Bay. Then I stared at Jeeves.

Then all three of us dissolved into giddy schoolboy laughter.

“Mister Bay informs me, sir,” said Jeeves while attempting to recover his composure, “that he also has an aunt who had long wished him to marry someone suitable.”

“It is a curse that recognises no boundaries and knows no remedy, Mister Wooster,” added Ardeth Bay, grinning. “If I tried this with my aunt, however, she would take the sword from me and shave my eyebrows with it.”

We sobered up quickly when Jonathan returned.

“She’s gone,” he said, looking like a man whose bride-to-be has just run off with a mummy.

“Rotten luck, old man,” I said. “I suppose I should’ve told you first thing that Jeeves had managed, by some accidental alchemy, to spring your gaol bird from his three-thousand-year-old chokey.” I nodded toward the sarcophagus.

He shrugged. “Would it have changed anything?”

He had me there. “Drink, gentlemen?” I asked.

“Hard to believe that just a few minutes ago I had a fiancée,” said Jonathan, nursing another whiskey and s. along with his not-so-secret sorrow. “And I was showing her how this thing worked.” He indicated the cigarette box, which was now on a small table beside my armchair.

Deciding a soothing smoke might be just what the doctor ordered, I reached for the button. “Clever thing, isn’t it?” I said as I plucked the ibis’ offering from its golden beak.

“But that isn’t the half of it, Bertie. An old buddy of mine, Captain Havelock, had one of these and he showed me a trick.”

“Havelock? Well, that was the fellow who owned this one! I won it in a competition at the Drones.”

“Really? Havelock was the fellow who gave me the bride-snatcher in the box over there. Well, look at this.” Jonathan got to his feet and went to the box and twisted the ibis.

The drawer popped out to reveal a compartment behind the one with the cigarettes, inside was a little bundle of wrapped linen.

“I say,” I said. I pulled out the bundle but found it completely soft. “Just cloth.”

Ardeth Bay was now on his feet. “May I?” he asked.

I gave it to him, and he stretched it out.

“Look at this, Jonathan.”

Jonathan studied it, his face turning pale. “This once held the stone of Anubis.” His voice faltered, and his attention seemed to be far away when he spoke. “She was, she was standing here when I showed her and then there was a doorbell. I looked over and watched Bertie answered it. It was his horrid aunt…”

“That’s why she was able to return to her original form, Jonathan,” said Ardeth gently. “She had the stone.”

Jonathan shook his head slowly. “I know how to pick ‘em, don’t I, Ardeth?”

“You have a true and loyal heart, my friend,” he replied, and the look of tenderness on his face and the way Jonathan leaned into him gave me a tingle in the Jeevesian department of my own thumper.

So that’s how it was. But how to help?

A silence fell as I pondered the circs. Then a scheme struck me.

“What are you going to do with that?” I nodded at the sarcophagus.

“British Museum, probably,” said Jonathan. “Why?”

“Jeeves, Aunt Agatha is going to recover her wits and return with a vengeance.”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“What say we put the casket in a basket and send it to the B. M. and you pack our toothbrushes and that dusty volume of yours and book us on a cruise of the Nile or camel caravan across the Sahara or some such with our friends here as learned guides? Then you’ll be among friends, Jonathan, while you lick your wounds. A quick change of scenery is the antidote to everyone’s asp bite, what?”

And, would you believe it, for once in my ruddy life, everyone was looking at me like I was the cleverest cove in the room.

“Yes,” they all said at once.

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
